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Scripps Florida at 10 needs philanthropy to fund its science

Scripps President Michael Marletta says donors are the key to the institute's future. But will they come?

In its first decade, Scripps Florida has proven to be a tougher sell with the philanthropic community than former Scripps President Dr. Richard Lerner had initially anticipated. That matters more than ever now, because the research institute’s $310 million state grant is completely disbursed.

Asked how Scripps Florida will keep the lights burning now that taxpayers’ money is exhausted, new Scripps President Michael Marletta answered with one word Thursday.

“Philanthropy,” he said.

Marletta was in West Palm Beach to mark Scripps’ 10-year anniversary at a Kravis Center luncheon. A hopeful sign for Scripps, the Cohen Pavilion was packed with 475 attendees, including donors Alex Dreyfoos, Elizabeth Fago, Marjorie Fink and Judy Goodman, as well as county commissioners Hal Valeche and Paulette Burdick.

Most of the tables included Scripps Florida scientists. Their stories about their research labors and successes were fascinating.

Medicinal chemistry professor William Roush was positively joyful describing a new compound his lab has synthesized, in partnership with Cancer Biology Chairman John Cleveland. The compound, first plucked from a small-molecule library supplied to Scripps Florida by the NIH, appears to have activity against so-called “triple-negative” breast cancer. That’s the type of breast cancer for which there are very few effective chemotherapy agents. Roush said the group is shopping for an industry partner to pick up the findings and carry it into clinical trials.

They described their work tracing the cascade of molecular events that lead to plaque accumulation, in brains damaged by Alzheimer’s disease. The hope is to find a target for drugs so that disease progression can be stopped or prevented. Shahani is an accomplished scientist in her own right, having worked on neurodegerative diseases like ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Nearby, Joseph Kissil discussed his work on small-cell lung cancer. He recently won a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study what’s believed to be a key switch that activates specific cancer genes.

A video played offering scientists’ testimonials about how personal their search for cures is, because they had lost family to these diseases, too.

Scripps Florida has had other major successes in its first decade, including discovery of a potential drug to treat multiple sclerosis, which is now in the final stages of human clinical trials, and the attraction of over $400 million in research grants.

Lerner often said he had chosen Palm Beach County over Lake Nona in Orlando because he believed that the area’s spectacular oceanfront and its local cultural attractions, including the Kravis Center, would draw some of the world’s most eminent scientists.

But he also chose Palm Beach County because of its culture of philanthropic giving, its ranking as one of the most important markets for philanthropy in the nation.

So far, though, Scripps Florida has yet to land the major gift that the region’s big donors have lavished on other causes.
My colleague William Kelly at the Palm Beach Daily News recently noted that five of America’s wealthiest donors have ties to Palm Beach. So far, they’re not on the Scripps Florida donor list.

Part-time resident and one-time Franklin Templeton chairman Charles Johnson gave $250 million to Yale University.
Miami Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross gave $200 million to the University of Michigan.
Industrialist David Koch gave $100 million gift to New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Say it can’t be done in Florida, where grateful patients and alumni are lacking? Not so fast.

In Orlando’s Lake Nona, on the site Scripps rejected, another LaJolla-based research institute is approaching its 10-year anniversary, the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute.

Last month, Sanford-Burnham announced that an anonymous donor had pledged a $275 million gift, to be disbursed over that institute’s next decade.

Like Scripps Florida, Sanford-Burnham promises to link basic science to drug-discovery techniques with a focus on speeding the translation of lab discoveries to patients. It, too, received taxpayer money to expand to the state, $311 million.

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